Before last March, I'd been in Barneys New York only once. I was 30, on a girls' night out with my friends—thin and beautiful girls who loved fashion and looked good in it. A few drinks in, one of them announced, "Let's go to Barneys!"—that gleaming temple of style on Madison Avenue.

These women, the stay-at-home wives of some very successful men, knew which labels were on which floors. I was not quite one of them: I was a food person, a culinary school graduate who had just opened my own catering business, and I had a deep ignorance of fashion. I said to my friends, "I'll just follow you to jeans."

I thought I'd be safe there. But the saleswoman kept bringing me jeans I couldn't possibly hike up beyond my thighs. Finally she handed me a pair that, thanks to Lycra, I got over my hips. I could not, however, button them. So she positioned herself behind me, grasped the waist of the jeans, and began to literally shake me into them. All the while, she growled, "You gotta tuck your fat in, girl! You tuck that fat in!" At Barneys in those days, the dressing rooms were communal. Five or six tanned, slender women watched the spectacle. At home that night, I thought, Nobody at Barneys is ever going to treat me like that again.

Seven years went by, and indeed, no one at Barneys did, because I did not set foot in there. I'd been groomed to avoid the high-end retailers of the world by my mother, who several days a week for 20 years wore my old raspberry sweatshirt emblazoned with the word ESPRIT in periwinkle; who never put on makeup; and who made me sew my own Jams-style pants in junior high because fashion was silly and she wasn't about to indulge it. This was despite being married to my father, who worked for three U.S. presidents and dragged her to plenty of fancy functions where dressing with style was required. When she sat next to Henry Kissinger at a White House dinner in the '70s and he said, "I really like your hair," she replied, "Oh, you can wear it too!" Then she took off her hairpiece and dangled it over the bone china and crystal.

Maybe because of my parents, one high-profile, the other charmingly (if eccentrically) exhibitionistic, I chose one of the most behind-the-scenes, invisible of jobs. I could orchestrate beautiful, elaborate dinners and events, all the while hiding in the kitchen. This allowed me to get away with a wardrobe of ratty T-shirts, sweatpants, and chef's whites. Then, two years ago, something happened that required me to acquire instant public style.

Elsie, who works in fashion, crinkled her nose. "IBM? No. You do not want to look like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. Call J.Crew, call Bergdorf, and call Barneys, and ask to speak to the personal shopping department."

Well, there is not one big boob in the J.Crew catalog, and three children and untold lemon bars later, I have boobs. And hips. And not-diminutive arms earned lifting vats of cooking oil and plastic tubs filled with 500 cupcakes. So I called Bergdorf Goodman. But the person I needed to see was on vacation that week. That left the 800-pound gorilla in the room: Barneys. I made my kitchen manager, Chris, call for me. "I need the nicest person in personal shopping you have," he said. The woman who answered said, "Oh, that's easy: José." Then she sent me a questionnaire.

What color are your eyes? Blue

What color is your hair? Red

What type of build are you? Nice of you not to ask my size

What type of dresser are you?

Conservative

What clothing lines do you like? Vince and J Brand (because those are the only labels in my closet!)

I e-mailed it in and got a call right away. "She needs to come in as soon as she can."

José was tall, glamorous, and maybe 50. He wore a gorgeous pink pocket-handkerchief in his gorgeous charcoal blazer, perfect shoes, and a diamond ring—his wedding band. His face was dusted in some powder, perhaps a little foundation. I, of course, was wearing none and was dressed in a pair of jeans and a black Vince sweater. My only Vince sweater.

I shook his hand, and he said, "Sit down and tell me about yourself and what you're shopping for. Because all I know is that you're shopping for an extended period of time, that you need pieces that you can mix and match—almost as if you were going on a long trip."

I nodded. "As much as I want fun clothes, I'm looking at this as an investment. I really need to be able to reuse these pieces." In fact, I was spending money on this that I didn't have. I'd set aside a check from the last job I'd been paid for, money I should've used to cover any number of mounting expenses, and that was my budget for this wardrobe.

"Is there going to be publicity? Will there be photographers?"

"I'm assuming there will be. But they won't be photographing me."

He and I stared at each other, pondering our next moves. The day before, I'd asked Elsie, "What if he wants to know what I need the clothes for?"

She replied, "Tell him everything."

So I did: At 5 A.M. one morning in November 2009, roughly 20 federal agents in SWAT gear broke down the door to my suburban house (guys, the doorbell worked just fine!), handcuffed my husband, Mike, and charged him with conspiracy and insider trading.

Nineteen surreal months later, his trial was about to begin. And my job, according to Mike's lawyers, was not only to be there in the courtroom supporting him—of course I'd be there—but, they added, to look the part: stylish and pretty, but in a tailored way. I needed to look a whole lot better than I did, than I felt.

My husband was facing between five and (if you believe the papers) 25 years in jail. We have three children under the age of seven. We'd spent every cent we'd ever saved on his defense. And while I'd encountered incredible support and kindness in my very small town, certain people had stopped talking to me or making playdates with our kids; others stared with curiosity or pity when I bumped into them at the grocery store or while dropping off the children at school.

"I don't want to feel ashamed of myself," I told José. "I already feel so much humiliation. I just can't feel it during this period of time. I want to at least feel like I look good."

José's jaw was on the floor. He has dressed princesses, a Real Housewife, Goldie Hawn, and Christie Brinkley, but I believe the wife of an indicted husband was a first. From that moment, however, he took charge.

He pulled a great Vince leather jacket.

"I'm supposed to wear this to a trial?" I sputtered.

He ordered me: "Go try it on."

I pouted over one admittedly beautiful Diane von Furstenberg dress he'd selected. "I don't look good in patterns. They make me very uncomfortable." He was unmoved. "Try it on." He turned to his assistant: "Nicole, go get some Spanx."

He and Nicole filled the room with dresses, shoes, skirts, pants; Isabel Marant, Louboutin, Theory, Dries Van Noten, Martin Grant, Shipley & Halmos, Rag & Bone, Marc Jacobs—names I'd never heard and price tags that terrified me. And in such colors: oranges and purples, greens and blues. (I said black! I fumed silently. Didn't this guy read my sheet?) We quickly developed this banter. He knew I was miserable. "Christie [Brinkley] has a saying," he said. "`They're gonna take your picture no matter what, so give them a good angle.'"

He pulled a pair of black pants. Giorgio Armani. They fit perfectly.

"These are beautiful," I said. They were wide-legged, made of the sleekest wool and with a waist that made my tummy disappear. I'd never encountered a pair of pants like them.

"You have an ass for designer pants," he said, sizing up my butt. By which he meant I had a round ass. "And now you know you have to wear designer pants."

And then he pulled out this I Love Lucy of a dress, Barneys house label. It was burnt orange gossamer-like cotton, with a full skirt and fitted bodice. It was also tight in the arms, which, of course, made me feel bad about my arms.

"This isn't fitting me."

"Well, we can alter it."

"I don't like it."

"You look good in it."

"My arms look fat."

"We'll have the seamstress come in and fix the sleeves."

"Why am I buying something if it doesn't fit me?"

José, so patient with my fashion prejudices for so long, finally seemed to have reached the end of his rope: "Do you think people you see on the street who look meticulous, do you think they just walk into a store and buy something that fits them? Everybody alters. That's why they look so great."

It was a revelation to me: Everybody alters? You mean they don't all fit naturally into beautiful clothes? They don't all know instinctively which heels to wear with leggings? They aren't all size 00 and earning $250,000 a year and getting a prime table at Momofuku Noodle Bar? Everything doesn't come easily to them? Okay, now I was taking the metaphor a bit far. But for years I'd felt flawed and judged: about my career choice (my parents called it my "hobby"), my appearance ("if you'd just diet, you would lose that baby weight"), and, for the last 19 months as my husband's trial loomed, I'd been feeling intensely judged, intensely outcast. Somehow the idea that others needed the help of people like José to appear beautiful and at home in the world deeply comforted me.

"Hold on, I'm not done," he said. "Put on the shoes."

They were chocolate pumps with the most delicate stiletto heel. I picked them up: Manolo Blahnik. I stepped into them. Oh dear. I loved them.

For five hours that day, José and Nicole dressed me up, and I have to admit that those five hours became a respite from the chattering in my head, the wondering about what lay ahead for my family and me. The afternoon was such a respite that suddenly I realized I was late and didn't have time to go home to change for an event at my kids' school. Ah, but I was at Barneys. José and Nicole put me in a new pair of J Brand jeans, a silky zip-up A.L.C. top, a shimmery Dries Van Noten sweater, and Isabel Marant suede pumps. Then, tsk-tsking—"You need some face. I wear more makeup than you"—José took me downstairs to Sasha at the Nars counter, where she made me look, well, beautiful. When I got to the event, my friend Clay, who knows a thing or two about fashion, sized me up: "Girl, you did good!"

Boxes began arriving at my house from Barneys; José would see something he thought I'd like (or, more to the point, that I should like because it would look good on me) and ship it to me. He had Sasha send me samples of makeup with directions on how to apply them taped to everything; she even drew me diagrams.

"If you don't want it, bring it back; if you like it, you can send us a check," José would say. I loved his attention, but what I really loved was his decisiveness. He had answers for me at a time when none of the men in my life—not my husband or his lawyers, not my dad—had answers about what was going to happen to us.

"Never buckle a trench," José said, undoing the belt on my Theory coat and tying it in a knot. Now I knew! "Bare legs, bare legs! Never stockings." He choreographed what I would wear to jury selection (a Shipley & Halmos olive-and-aubergine geometric blouse with navy Luciano Barbera pants) and opening arguments and closing statements (a Barneys white cotton shift with leather detailing under a drapey black Rick Owens cardigan). He dressed me in designer clothing—on the face of it, it sounds superficial. But it wasn't. When the trial began, and during three weeks of dodging news crews and hearing my husband being attacked in court, I was protected. No one could see inside me. No one could see how I was really feeling. A beautifully made, perfectly fitting dress, a pair of peep-toe heels, and designer pants for my designer ass held together all the pieces of me that were threatening to fly apart.

On June 13, the jury came back from deliberating: My husband was convicted on all counts. As I write this, we are awaiting his sentencing.

When Mike was arrested, one of the first things my father said to me was, "Now it's time for you to step up." My mother, who passed away six years ago, might have put it more gently. I can imagine her saying, "Now is the time to become the person you are meant to be."

I am trying to do both. So about a week ago, I went back to Barneys to return the clothing José sent me that I'd decided not to buy; these days there's not too much money in the budget for designerwear. I passed the Nars counter; Sasha waved. Hey, I had a friend at Barneys!

As I walked to the elevators to the fifth floor, I realized I wasn't having a panic attack. I no longer saw the store as an enemy. It had become almost a haven.

José greeted me with a big kiss and a hug.

"Wow, look at you!" he said. I was wearing white J Brand jeans, Marc Jacobs shoes, and a Vince tank with thin leather piping—all picked out by him. But all assembled by me. He pursed his lips: "And you're barefaced."

He knew what had happened. "I saw the picture," he said, referring to one that made the Internet showing me on June 13 in the Barneys white cotton shift, with a narrow belt around my middle ("gives you a waist, honey"), shortly after I'd been yelling at the photographers to stop taking Mike's picture as we left the courthouse. But you'd never know I'd just gone nuclear, because on the outside I look put together, like I know what I'm doing. And bit by bit, I do.